


Chasing Twisters

by Sirenidae



Category: Deadpool (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, POV Female Character, Redemption, also:, idk like a lot of respect and love but also I like to make things sad so...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 16:04:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8378608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenidae/pseuds/Sirenidae
Summary: Ellie's on the path to becoming and X-Men but she's not sure if she belongs. It's another two years before her 21st birthday and her graduation from the initiate program but she can't find a reason to stick around. She can't really find a reason to leave either, the horrendous matching unitards aside. Feeling very much like outcast within the outcasts, Ellie shares her problems with an unlikely listener.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title I used here is the title of a Delta Rae song. I suggest giving it a listen, it's quite fitting for the ship and my story.

Cool air trickled out toward Ellie as she stared into the fridge, still holding onto the handle and chewing her gum at a languid pace. There was nothing in here that she wanted but she kept looking at the contents, hoping for inspiration. What she really wanted was a root beer. She would kill for a root beer. Or at least punch a fiery hole through a wall to make her point. Ellie hadn’t had the soda since she was a kid and she was suddenly feeling nostalgic for the sweet cream taste.

The school had a nourishment mandate to help promote wellness for everyone, which included only having healthy snacks such as grapefruit flavored seltzer waters instead of root beer. Squinting at the bubbly drink packaged in a brightly colored can, Ellie finally sighed and slammed the door shut. The pressurized seal absorbed most of the force and Ellie felt cheated. She moved to the large walk-in pantry next to the fridge housing the dry goods but she knew it was pointless. They never had Cheez-Its or Oreos or Pop Tarts and that’s really all she wanted right then. If she had to eat one more rice cake, flavored or not, she was going to scream. She looked up to the top shelves that housed tubs of protein powder and rows of organic protein bars and popped her gum. What was the point of all that powder without anything to mix it with? Not that she’d ever contaminate root beer with something out of a GNC. This time when she slammed the door to the pantry the noise was loud and satisfying.

She wasn’t alone in the kitchen and the noise drew several brief stares that Ellie ignored as she left the room, hand already deep in her jacket pocket, searching for her new phone. Her last was left shattered at that, shipping place? Ellie didn’t know how to describe the abandoned junkyard where she had fought in two days ago. Her mouth twisted in a satisfied smile as she remembered the fighting that had taken place. Ellie liked the fighting. She even liked how sore she still was. It was good practice, it made her stronger.

The young woman walked through the school with her nose in her phone, scrolling through Instagram for something funny to look at. Her feet navigated around the younger, more rambunctious students and the faculty that either walked with a striding purpose or who lingered in corners, patiently answering questions of their more studious pupils. Swiping the app closed, Ellie put her phone away and walked into the first floor common room, full of couches and several television sets. Off to the side of the room, metal glinted in her vision and she walked over to Colossus, who was taking up an entire loveseat although he looked like he was trying very hard not to. “Hey,” she addressed him. He looked up from his book. “Let’s go to the store.”

The man’s metal eyebrows rose. “There is plenty of food here, Negasonic. Does nothing appeal to you?” His booming Russian voice always made her want to smile though she resisted the action. She liked the rhythm of his words, even if he was a huge, shiny dork.

“I want root beer. Let’s take the jet.”

Colossus narrowed his eyes before smiling broadly. “I can never tell when you’re joking.” Ellie pulled her phone out of her pocket and began to search the app store for a delivery service that would come to the school’s address. “I can’t leave, Negasonic,” Colossus continued on. “I’m attending an Amnesty Hearing today.” Ellie jerked at this and she looked up at her mentor. He nodded. “Yes, for Angel Dust.”

Ellie frowned. “Why wasn’t I invited? I fought her just as much as you.” She paused, considering. “You couldn’t have defeated her without me.”

Colossus put his book down, leaving it open across his leg, pages spread over his large thigh. “For the amount of time you spend on that phone you never check your email.” Ellie resisted rolling her eyes and explaining to him again that her official X-Men account hadn’t been setup yet and that he had to keep forwarding her the threads until it was. “You were invited just the same as I.”

“What time is the hearing?”

“Eleven. Did you not eat breakfast? Is that why you are hungry?” Colossus sat up straighter in his seat and adopted his “Let’s Lecture Negasonic Teenage Warhead” stance. “You know what I say about eating breakfast.” She waved him away, cutting him off.

“I’m going down early, I’ll see you there.” She turned and left Colossus in the living room, picking up his book again and having to skim back to the paragraph before where he left off.

Ellie found her way to the stairwell and descended one floor to the basement level before walking to the elevators and pressing the button, waiting with her phone in her hand. If she was invited today that means Douchepool was probably invited too, although Ellie had no idea if he had email. She opened her contacts and scrolled through them, looking for his number.

<Did u get the Amnesty Hearing invite too?> she texted. She watched him start to type, stop, start again, stop, start, and then finally send the “still typing bubble” emoji. What did she really expect from that lunatic? Ellie put her phone away and hit the elevator button again, impatient. The doors dinged and slid open a moment later and Ellie stepped aside, allowing Storm and Iceman to exit, deep in conversation, and turn away from Ellie to walk down the hallway and away to do whatever business it was that required their attention. She was still in training and had not yet been initiated into the higher ranks of the senior X-Men. Ellie sighed, wondering if she would ever feel the desire for Negasonic Teenage Warhead to have a real place in the X-Men.

Ellie slipped into the elevator and hit the button for the lowest level before the doors could shut. She pressed it once more even though the machinery started working, bringing her down to the lower depths beneath Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and Higher Learning where they housed criminals in holding cells. Ellie considered tweeting how her school was more like Hogwarts in terms of student safety but decided against it.

A short ride later, the doors slid open at Ellie poked her head out, looking down the hallway to her right before stepping out and tossing another look over her shoulder. _Calm down,_ she told herself, adjusting her jacket with her phone still in hand. She popped her gum, checked her direction, and strode off down the fluorescent lit corridor.

Ellie knew where to go, she had only been down here once before to watch the interrogation of a captive, but she remembered the way. Before she had followed at Rouge’s heels, nervous and wide-eyed and three years younger than she was now. Today, she was alone and was grateful for it.

Rounding the corner to the entrance for the holding cells, Ellie lurked on the threshold, consulting with the iPad kiosk bolted into the wall at the mouth of the room as to which cells were occupied. A few quick taps told her all the stasis pods and all but one of the titanium holding cells were empty. The blueprint of the room on the screen showed a red block a few cells down from the entrance, standing out from the other green squares and Ellie tapped it. There was no further information about its occupant Ellie didn’t already know. Fighting an opponent made one pretty intimate to their powers. Without hesitation, Ellie pressed the open cell door button and typed in her ID code, relishing that her upper trainee status earned her certain privileges.

The large titanium doors keeping the holding cell area from the subterranean hallway and the rest of the school split in two and slid apart with a hiss of pressurized air and a great creaking of working metal. Ellie winced at the noise and looked around. No one was rushing to see what the commotion was and she relaxed. It was now, with doors fully opened, that Ellie hestatied. Busying herself with returning the iPad kiosk to display the home screen, Ellie avoided looking down into the holding cell block until she had to.

Round industrial lights marched in a single line down the long hallway built into the makeshift prison. She wondered briefly if this was a bad idea but then immediately changed her mind. Her ideas were never bad. Well, lately. Since turning nineteen, Ellie felt immensely more mature, and her X-Men training only helped that sentiment. She still wished her fifteen year old self hadn’t chosen to include “teenage” within her X-name. What was she going to do next year when she turned twenty?

Movement came to her left as Ellie cautiously walked down the center of the hall to the closest empty cell. She hesitated and strayed to the shadows, lurking in the shallow corners of darkness before stopping near the third cell on the left side of the corridor.

“The doors didn’t just open on their own.” Ellie froze. The voice came from occupant in the cell Ellie was casing. “I know someone’s there.” Ellie knew this mutant didn’t possess anything the would make her a danger through the gaps between titanium bars. Angel Dust’s only gift was strength, impressive strength. Even so, the woman gave Ellie pause. Shaking off her fear, Ellie stepped into the narrow pool of light illuminating the cell and tried to stand as if she knew what she was doing and was perfectly in control.

Angel was wrapped completely in chains, clamps at her wrists, ankles, and a huge circle of metal wrapped around her waist. The mutant was seated on a chair bolted to the floor, the metal corset around her middle attached to the bulky chair. Her arms were pulled tightly behind her back and her feet firmly anchored into the ground. The fortified titanium held Angel so tightly she couldn’t get momentum to swing about or pull on her restraints. She sat slumped wiht head was down, uneven hair shielding her face from the overhead light and Ellie’s gaze. According to the iPad, Angel had also been heavily sedated and Ellie wondered why that extra precaution had been taken. It seemed like overkill to her. She had read that Angel’s mutation reacted differently to the drugs, but the medication still made her slur her words slightly. Ellie felt something pull in her stomach. Here was another mutant, like her, tied up and held captive, helpless and backed into a corner. Ellie liked the fighting, but she wasn’t sure that seeing the direct results of the aftermath suited her at all.

After a moment, Angel shook her hair out of her face and craned her neck up to look at whomever it was outside of her cell. Angel pulled her head back slightly, recognizing the tiny girl standing in the beam of sterile white light shining down from above her cell. “You. From the Helicarrier wreck.”

“Is that what that place was?” Ellie pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the time (quarter to eleven), the picture of nonchalance. “Huh, weird.”

Angel grinned. She knew the teenager’s bravado of courage was a bluff, Angel used the same tactic herself at a younger age. “You pack a pretty mean punch. How long was I out?”

“Just a couple of days.”

Angel nodded her head thoughtfully. She could feel pain and soreness but they were dulled, as if the fight happened a week ago, not two days. It was disorienting. “So, why are you here?”

The question took Ellie by surprise. She chewed her gum, staring the prisoner down and stalling for time as she tried to formulate an answer. Why was she there? “You were choking my friend, you were going to kill him. I had to do something.”

The other woman shook her head, hair again falling in her face. “That’s why I’m here.” She studied the short teenager outside the bars of her cell through her hair. “Not why you are.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t need a reason. I live here.”

“Oh, yeah? One of the X-Men?” Angel felt a wave of dizziness come over her, a fog passing over her entire body. She vaguely remembered an IV drip. Did they drug her? Fury built low within her. She had been dosed without her consent. The thought of someone with control over her unconscious body turned her stomach. The rage twisted in a bubbling nausea and the drugs reacted with her system and very empty stomach. “Fuck,” Angel managed to expel out before her stomach followed suit.

Shocked, Ellie took a step forward. “Are you okay?” They didn’t treat prisoners badly here, not with the Professor running things. That was something S.H.I.E.L.D. did, in one of their weird prisons under the ocean or where else they built such things.

Spitting out the last of her sick, Angel kept her eyes lowered, embarrassed and annoyed she was in such a vulnerable position. “I’m fine, it’s just whatever medicine you put in me coming up.”

“They put in you.”

Angel squinted out at the girl. “What?”

“I didn’t drug you.”

Angel rolled her eyes and allowed her head to fall forward again. “Whatever.” She swallowed against another wave of nausea and wished for some water.

Ellie twitched her nose. “Your hearing is at eleven.” Angel gave her a look as if to say “there isn’t a fucking clock down here” and Ellie shrugged, pocketing her phone again. “Anyway, I just wanted to check to see if you were conscious.” Ellie spun on her heel and made abruptly for the exit, looking, she knew, not very cool at all.

The doors slid closed behind her once Ellie tapped the iPad again and she trotted away from the sound of metal clanging against metal and towards the room where Angel was about to stand trial. Ellie adopted her trademark scowl as she pushed open the door to the wide room full of seats, built more like a lecture hall than a courtroom. Climbing to one of the farthest back rows, she plunked herself down and settled in to wait, watching as other residents of the mansion began to trickle in and keeping an eye out for a tall, annoying man in a red suit. She tried to ignore how fast her heart was pounding.


End file.
